We’ve only recently woken up to the oral character of language and the differences between oral/written modes of thought and expression

Linguistics has been sounding a faint alarm. Ferdinand de Saussure commented that: writing has “usefulness, shortcomings and dangers”, but he saw writing as a complement to verbal speech, not a transformer of it.

More recently applied and socio-linguistics looking at changes in mental structures incident to writing

The BIG awakening, though, came from Literary Studies and Milman Parry‘s work on Homer and the more recent Slavic oral epic tradition

Why was any awakening needed?

It seems obvious that orality and literacy are different.

e.g. roughly 3000 languages spoken today of which only 78 have a literature

e.g. writing extends word resources: English has more than 1.5million words (see OED), and most oral dialects have only several thousand words

in short, writing implies some orality in a culture, orality does not imply writing.

But: the reason our studies have focused on written texts rather than oral “texts” has to do with the relationship of study itself to writing.

“All thought, including that in primary oral cultures, is to some degree analytic: it breaks its materials into various components.. But abstractly sequential, classificatory, explanatory examination of stated truths is impossible without writing and reading. Human beings in primary oral cultures, those untouched by writing in any form, learn a great deal and possess and practise great wisdom, but they do not ‘study’.*” (p.8/9)
* Study meaning extended sequential analysis.

Once writing makes study possible, one of the first things we tend to study is ‘oral’ language. e.g. Aristotle’s Rhetoric

BUT (and here’s the catch) the oral language we study tends to be written down. And that blurs the divide and so means we needed to be reawakened to it – e.g. understand that we can’t read a speech.

Oral Literature

The assumption that oral verbalization essentially the same as written verbalization has odd consequences for thinkers

The notion of “Oral Literature” is perhaps the oddest.

because Literature wrapped up with writing (the Latin for letter of the alphabet is litera)

and because

“Written words are residue. Oral tradition has no such residue or deposit. When an often-told story is not actually being told, all that exists of it is the potential in certain human beings to tell it. We (those who read texts such as this) are for the most part so resolutely literate that we feel uncomfortable with a situation in which verbalisation is so little thing-like as it is in oral tradition.”

If you don’t think you’re resolutely literate try thinking of a word for sixty seconds without spelling it out or visualising it in your head.

Oral “texts” makes more sense than oral literature, in that a) Homer et al were often referred to as rhapsodein (stitching songs together), and b) text stems from the word texere meaning “to weave together”. However, texts are predominantly thought of as written. Ong suggests oral “epos” or “voicings” as alternatives

And the point of this book?

To use literacy to reconstruct primary orality, untouched by writing, and so to get a better understanding of how our literacy affects our approach to current and new modes of communication.

Excellent post, Piers. When I think of analogies for oral epos, I think of theater or live music, where the audience helps enact and energize an unfinished mutable process, as opposed to written texts, which are similar to static objects like movies or recorded music.

Sounds an interesting book Piers – pity I have a major unread stack at the moment.

A thought occurs to me about this medium – one of the reasons I like it, is that it’s more like conversation, than “writing” – the reason in saying something is more immediate – a kind of body language, with interaction in the spaces.

(Following on a little tardily from May’s notes) Chapter 2: Modern discovery of Primary Oral Cultures Early Awareness of Oral Tradition Tradition of writing down sayings longlived: Ecclesiastes 12:9-10 “Besides being wise, Qoheleth taught the people kn…

About Me

My name is Piers Young. I moved from IT and social software research into teaching. This is my scrapbook, commonplace etc. where I jot down my thoughts on thinking, and try to capture some of what interests, amuses or intrigues me. These are my views, temporarily, and quite possibly only my views. They are certainly not necessarily the views of my employers, past or present. Comments are always welcome and feel free to contact me here

Connect

Twitterings

#SLTchat – one of the striking things at #TLAB15 was how many try to teach past the test, not to. Why should new curric affect that at all? 1 week ago

#SLTchat Number 1 tip would be Linus’s Law: With enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. i.e. be open & genuinely collaborate 1 week ago